When I’m Scared

Scared. Scared shitless and no plan to make it better, makes for a very hard week.

Too much comparison with others’ lives, careers, talents, jobs, kids, health, weight, even others’ sense of humor. It all kills all my joy. Not enough trust kills my ability to enjoy my incredibly blessed life. Constantly thinking about all the ways that I am frequently scared. Knowing how often I am just plain terrified to breathe.

I used to be a pretender. (Not so) confidently white-knuckling my way through leadership, creativity, people and their problems, service.

I thought I could to anything. And I just about did. Though there was always a price.

But I was scared and my faith, well that was missing. I didn’t have faith in anything and I worried endlessly that someone would find out just how little I believed.

Jesus loves you, this I did not know.

It wasn’t until I lost everything (I thought) and I fell down, down, down into depression, and alcohol, and isolation from good people and into what was for me deep depravity, that I knew Jesus as my source. It was days without God, stretching out for what seemed like perpetuity – no, it wasn’t until I was living those hopeless days and nights that I came to know and believe.

I’m still scared, and I still can’t believe that there is something good out there for me. I sit and sometimes I cry. I just cry hopeless tears and the fear flows out of me, and I ask God for something that only I can do, but then I do the only thing I know.

I lean into the Holy One and rest.

This me, the one you know and see today, she’s no pretender because she’s got nothing left to hide.

Still scared, yes but down low with Jesus, resting in him. Sometimes, when your fear is clutching your heart tight, you’re blinking back the bitter taste of anxiety and you think you cannot bear it another minute, that’s when you must sit and rest in the Holy One.

I’m not saying I know how to do it, only that I know I must seek the sweet release of Jesus.

He took it all, already. The pain, anxiety, addiction, sin, crappy self-esteem, fear and disbelief, lack of self-love, lack of trusting others, lack, all my lack! He already nailed it to the cross.

Why do I keep taking it back down and walk around wearing it like a heavy armor, dragging it through my life, making my days slow and painful. Why?

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It is so difficult to lay things down and not pick them back up again… especially for we who call ourselves addicts. We are taught to identify with the things we’ve done wrong or the areas where we are weak so we can have the hope of moving forward from our addiction. It is necessary to being the walk. It is often necessary to remind us not to be too full of ourselves when we see success in our lives, lest we fall down again.

That reality often leaves us so very afraid. Terrified, because the cost of living becomes so high. Many folks return to that comfortable place where we’re consumed by our addiction. It’s easier to deal with the failings that we have learned to live with, than to fail in new ways that we cannot predict what they will do to us.

After reading this, I’m reminded of the passage…Psalm 103:12 “As far as the East is from the West, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” But, we who use our own pasts and weaknesses as a weapon to bash ourselves with over and over, have to travel that far to put our sin and weakness back upon our shoulders. We have to go that far. I know for me, it’s wasted effort and energy. Yet, I still find myself doing that very thing. How silly it would be if it wasn’t so painful.

The most amazing thing is that you already have the everything promised to you. Forgiveness, transformation, reclamation, restoration, and of course a new identity… all promised and delivered. Inside, I echo those tears and waiting for that thing that He created for me to be. I ache with the thought that it might never arrive. Or that I’ll spend my life searching for it, only to find that I’ve overlooked and not listened. Press in, and hold on. Wipe your hair across His feet with the sweet fragrance of your obedience. It’s the only way we can choose to hold onto the promises He has given to us.

Such freedom there is, in the knowing that there isn’t a need to hide. Wrap yourself in that fresh air and fresh possibilities. The concept of repentance is the turning from a closed fist holding on tightly to an open hand, palm up to the sky. You are such a great example of it. Keep plugging away at it. Don’t let where you’ve come from take away what you have been granted. =)

Fear not said the angel. Every time God shows up big, He says fear not. I suppose that means God’s about to show up big? =)

What a beautiful meditation of words on suffering, carrying crosses and giving all the pain up to God, and the difficult journey to keep giving it up, and the even more difficult realization that life is falling down and in that the beauty of God can create glimmers of light that shine brighter than our personal lamps ever could. The paradox of pain, being human, and faith. Thank you for sharing your journey and being candid about the fear inherent in a life of faith and humanness.

I am glad to have stumbled across you on my own pilgrimage of faith.

And as an aside, the title of your blog would be the tagline for my marriage if I had one–he’s all logic and I’m all imagination :).

Thank you again for your prayer of sharing,
TB Pasquale @ crookedmystic.com

Thank you so much for commenting. It seems we have found fellow sojourners, which is wonderful in the crazy world. I’m off to a writer’s conference but when I return I will take the time to visit your writings.